When Rest Feels Risky

I am afraid of rest.

Not because I don’t value it. Not because I think rest is lazy or unnecessary. I’m afraid of rest because I’m an insomniac.

I am awake a lot. Falling asleep is hard. Staying asleep is harder. Over time, that changes the way you relate to rest. It stops feeling restorative and starts feeling risky. If I rest now, will I pay for it later? If I lie down during the day, will tonight be endless?

I also live with fibromyalgia and arthritis. Pain has a way of keeping score. When sleep is poor, pain increases. When pain increases, sleep becomes harder. Somewhere along the way, rest begins to feel like a gamble I can’t afford to lose.

Right now, I’m sick. Fever, chills, body aches, congestion—the full miserable lineup. My body is asking for rest, loudly. And yet I find myself resisting it, afraid that resting today will steal whatever fragile chance I have at sleep tonight.

This is where I’m having to slow down and tell myself the truth.

Rest is not the same thing as sleep.

Sleep is something that may or may not come. Rest is something I can choose. Rest is lowering demand. It’s stopping the constant bracing. It’s allowing my body to focus on healing instead of endurance.

For a long time, I treated rest as transactional. If I rested “wrong,” I would be punished later. If I rested too much, I would lose sleep. If I rested at the wrong time, I would regret it. That mindset turns rest into another form of work—and another thing to fail at.

But refusing rest doesn’t actually protect sleep. More often, it increases pain, inflammation, and nervous-system overload. And that doesn’t make nighttime come any easier.

There’s a verse I return to when rest feels risky:

“It is vain for you to rise up early,
to sit up late,
to eat the bread of anxious toil;
for He gives His beloved rest.” (Psalm 127:2)

What strikes me is not the warning about anxious striving—it’s the word gives.

Rest is not something I manufacture by doing everything right. It’s not something I earn by managing my body well enough or timing my exhaustion perfectly. According to this verse, rest is something God gives to His beloved.

Not to the efficient.
Not to the disciplined.
Not to the ones who sleep well.

To the beloved.

That means rest is relational before it is biological. It’s not just about sleep cycles and pain levels, though those matter. It’s about trust. It’s about allowing myself to stop proving that I’m trying hard enough to deserve relief.

He gives His beloved rest.

Sabbath has taught me this in a way nothing else has.

Sabbath is not collapse. It’s not recovery from burnout. It’s alignment—stepping out of anxious toil and back into the truth that the world, and my body, do not depend on my constant vigilance.

When I am sick, resting is not stealing from the night ahead. It is agreeing with God that I am still beloved when I stop striving.

I’m learning to redefine rest. Rest doesn’t have to mean sleeping. It can mean lying down without pressure. Sitting quietly. Closing my eyes without expectation. Listening to something soft. Letting my body be supported instead of held upright by effort.

Sometimes I set a timer so my anxious brain knows this isn’t forever. Sometimes I rest on the couch instead of the bed so it doesn’t feel like I’m borrowing from nighttime. Sometimes rest is simply giving myself permission to stop trying to manage the outcome.

Here’s the hardest thing for me to accept: my body does not need to earn rest by sleeping well later.

Rest is not a reward.

It’s not a moral victory. It’s not something I should withhold until conditions are perfect. Especially when I’m sick, rest is part of the work my body is already doing.

Sometimes rest leads to sleep. Sometimes it doesn’t. But refusing rest almost always leads to more pain.

I’m still learning this. I still resist. I still worry. But I’m trying to remember that rest is not giving up—it’s cooperation. It’s alignment. It’s choosing not to fight my body when it’s already fighting hard enough.

If you’re afraid of rest too—because sleep has been unreliable, because pain has taught you caution, because letting go feels risky—I see you.

You are allowed to rest without guarantees.
You are allowed to lie down without falling asleep.
You are allowed to care for your body without making promises about tonight.

Rest is not something I force my body into.
It is something I receive—sometimes with open hands, sometimes trembling.

But always as one who is loved.

If rest feels complicated for you—especially if sleep has never come easily—you may also want to read Sabbath When You Don’t Sleep Well. It’s a quiet companion to this reflection, written for those who want to keep Sabbath without turning rest into another thing to get “right.”